Germans celebrate fall of Berlin Wall

Published: Wednesday, November 10, 1999

BERLIN {AP} With fireworks, concerts and a huge party at the landmark Brandenburg Gate, Germany on Tuesday celebrated the courage of hundreds of thousands of East Germans who brought down the reviled Berlin Wall 10 years ago with their peaceful demands for democracy.

Daylong observances starting with religious services and official ceremonies sought to inspire a sense of shared national identity and remind Germans that the Wall's collapse alone did not guarantee the bloodless transition from communism to democracy that took hold in East Germany and spread eastward.

"We should look at German unity as a gift and a chance for the future," former Chancellor Helmut Kohl told lawmakers and invited guests at the German parliament, including former President Bush and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

Reuniting a decade after the Cold War ended peacefully, the former world leaders reflected on how it might have been otherwise had they not developed a personal trust, allowing each to pursue a course that redrew the map of Europe and created a new world order.

The rest of the world may have been celebrating communism's imminent demise on Nov. 9, 1989, but the leaders recalled their fears that communist hard-liners might order a crackdown. Bush and Kohl expressed particular gratitude toward Gorbachev, who kept Soviet soldiers in their East German barracks in the crucial hours after the Wall tumbled and then helped negotiate German unity a mere 11 months later.

Bush recalled pressure from U.S. lawmakers to travel to Berlin "and dance on the Wall with students," claiming Western victory in the Cold War.

"I knew this was not the time to gloat over what many in the West would call a defeat for Russia," Bush said.

"The reason the superpower struggle ended without literally a shot being fired was in large measure because the leaders on the scene knew one another."

Despite the euphoria now associated with Nov. 9, it is not a national holiday largely because it coincides with the anniversary of Kristallnacht the Night of Broken Glass when Nazi storm troopers destroyed Jewish businesses and synagogues 61 years ago, presaging the Holocaust.

That dark side of Germany's history was remembered in speeches by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and others in parliament.

Kristallnacht "stands for our eternal shame and the unforgettable dishonor that the Nazis and their supporters brought upon Germany and the world," Schroeder said.